by David Duncan
Wallie turned to see how the rest of his party was proceeding, coming at Honakura's slow pace. "Nnanji! Look!"
A solitary figure was dancing up and down on the cliff top―Garadooi. He had a horse beside him. Wallie waved to show that he had noticed, and the lad acknowledged. He remounted and rode away.
Nnanji's eyes had narrowed to slits. "They're coming?"
"That's how I take it."
How long for mounted men unencumbered by a cart to travel the length of the lake? How long to scramble down the hill? And that might not even be necessary, if a spell cast from up there could summon demons to down here.
Wallie wiped sweat from his brow, but some of that was from the heat, for the sun was glaring off the water and the dark stonework. The still air was dead and enervating. Sapphire was very close, obviously about to reach the jetty at the exact place she had been tied up earlier. The arguments were over, and so were attempts to free the anchor. Two men were adjusting fenders, but most of the rest seemed to have disappeared. Jja, Vixini, Cowie, and Honakura had reached the jetty.
Gentle as falling feathers, Sapphire nestled against the pier. Wallie stepped to a bollard, waiting for a line. Nothing happened. No gangplank?
He jumped up on the pile of lumber, which put him almost level with the men standing on deck, and some distance back from the ship.
"You forgot this?" he asked politely.
For a while there was no reply, only a staring match. Five men were visible, and no one else. They were standing along the near side, well spaced to repel boarders and holding their hands down, out of sight below the gunwale, so he could not tell if they were armed. All he could see were bare brown chests and angry faces. He thought briefly of a line-up of wrestlers.
The one in the center was closest, and therefore likely the spokesman. He must be the captain, Tomiyano. He was visibly furious, eyes slitted, powerful white teeth bared in a grimace. Three shipmarks just below a Caesar haircut told of his rank and craft. He was young and well built, bone upholstered with muscle, and he was barely keeping control of himself. His hair was reddish―not as red as Nnanji's―but his skin was burned to the same dark rosewood shade. In spite of his youth, he looked like a man accustomed to having his own way. He looked dangerous.
Wallie was not on board yet. He made the sign of acknowledgment of an inferior.
The sailor snarled. "What do you want, swordsman?"
"Permission to come aboard, Captain?"
"Why?"
"I seek passage for myself and these companions."
"This is a family ship―we have no room for passengers."
"I am willing to pay any reasonable fare."
"That will not make the ship larger."
"Then put your Jonahs ashore."
The sailor's weathered face flamed even brighter, although there was no shame in being a Jonah. "What the hell do you mean by that, swordsman?"
Wallie waited a moment to cool his own rising temper. To address a highrank by his craft was deliberate insult. He was also fighting a searing desire to turn and look at the cliff, to see if sorcerers had appeared there yet, but that would be a tactical error in this nasty negotiation. He could only hope that Nnanji was watching and would tell him when it happened.
"If you have no Jonahs aboard, then perhaps you were brought here to get some?"
Tomiyano, if that was who he was, drummed fists on the rail in frustration and looked up longingly at the limp sails.
"Sailor, this is benefiting no one. Let me come aboard and I shall salute you. Or you salute me here. Then we can resume our discussion in civilized fashion."
The captain was silent. A whole minute seemed to drag by in wordless glaring. Then he snapped: "I am Tomiyano, sailor of the third rank, master of Sapphire..." He gabbled off the rest with a few careless gestures. It was the cultural equivalent of spitting on a man's foot.
Wallie let the rudeness sit in the air for a moment, then drew his sword. "I am Shonsu, swordsman of the seventh rank, chosen champion of the Goddess, and am..."
"Chosen what?"
"Champion. This is Her own sword, Captain. It was given to me by a god. Note the sapphire? My hairclip is another sapphire, and also came from him. I am on a mission for the Most High. I am presently in need of transportation, and your ship was brought here, I understand, by Her Hand."
Tomiyano spat. "Firsts talk too much."
"He was lying?"
"No," admitted the captain.
Katanji coughed loudly. Wallie's head turned before he could stop it. Five men in cowled gowns were standing on the cliff top.
Tomiyano had noticed. He smiled with joy. "Running from someone, swordsman?"
"Yes, sailor. Sorcerers."
"Sorcerers? This close to the River? Hah!"
Wallie glanced at the other four men. They were frowning, perhaps wavering, but he must convince their captain first. He turned to the cliff again. The sorcerers were hurrying toward the easiest descent. Nnanji was paler than Wallie had ever seen him. It was not fear of the sorcerers that was eating at Nnanji― he wanted to get at this insolent sailor. The rest of Wallie's party were huddled behind the lumber, unhappily waiting. This might be another of the gods' tests―Wallie had very little time left to negotiate his way onto the ship.
Tomiyano jeered. "You've been gulled, swordsman! You're running from bogeymen."
Keeping his voice calm with an immense effort, Wallie said, "Not so. A year ago, in Ov, forty swordsmen were slain by sorcerers."
"They can have three more as far as I'm concerned."
"And Matarro of the First? Save him, then! Sail away quick, Captain."
The fury blazed up again in the sailor's face. That reminder of his own impotence seemed to rob him of speech. His ship had been hijacked, and he could do nothing about it.
"The sorcerers summon fire demons, Captain. You wouldn't want those near Sapphire, now, would you?"
Tomiyano seemed ready to start grinding his teeth. He turned to look at the River. For some distance out from the jetty, the water was as clear and smooth as plate glass. Beyond that it was rippled by wind.
"If I let you and your riffraff on board, then these sorcerers will come after you."
"Let us on board and you can depart. It is Her will you are flouting, not mine. I did not summon you here."
"No!" Tomiyano had thought of another solution―dead men do not need to go anywhere. His hand appeared, holding a knife. Wallie had no need to call on Shonsu's encyclopedic knowledge of blades to tell him that it was a throwing knife; the way the sailor was holding it showed that. Suddenly he felt very mortal. He was utterly vulnerable at that range, but too far away to use his sword.
"No damned landlubber swordsman will ever set foot on my deck again! I swore at Yok that―"
"Quiet!" shouted a new voice. The captain's arm dropped, and he turned to glare as a newcomer emerging from a door in the fo'c'sle. Wallie relaxed with a gasp. He stole another glance landward; the sorcerers were invisible, hidden in the trees, but they must be close to the valley floor by now. He looked at the River. The edge of that mysterious calm was racing landward―the wind was coming. He could only have minutes left before Sapphire began to move. If he could not board, then he and Nnanji should be heading for the trees, to meet the enemy under cover...
"I'll handle this, Tom'o," said the new voice, and Wallie aimed to stare in bewilderment at the figure now standing beside the captain―a Fifth, in red. A swordsman, for there was a sword hilt beside the gray-streaked ponytail, but old enough to wear a sleeveless gown; short and enormously fat, and the harness was a strange type, with the chest straps crossing in an X instead of being vertical... Too fat. Fat in the wrong places...
Then she began her salute: "I am Brota, swordsman of the fifth rank, owner of Sapphire..."
* * *
A fat, middle-aged, female swordsman? As he drew his sword to respond, Wallie's mind was reeling from this latest shock, and he could hear Nnanji growling. Tomiyan
o began to argue; the woman told him to be quiet, and he obeyed. Owner? She was obviously the true master of the ship, almost certainly Tomiyano's mother. When the seventh sword clicked back into its scabbard, she turned her head briefly to study the River, then the apparently empty valley on the other side. Her ponytail was bound by an incongruous pink bow.
"What talk is this of sorcerers, my lord?"
"They slaughtered the garrison in Ov a year ago, mistress. The Goddess has sent me to deal with them―but at the moment I do not have the forces to do so. Five of them will be here in a few moments. I am not the only one in danger. You and Novice Matarro..."
She was not as tall as Wild Ani, but probably fatter. Yet that pillowed brown face held none of the sullen air of defeat that haunted always the face of a slave. There was an ominous hardness there, and Wallie tracked it down to her eyes. The rest of her features were soft and rounded, but the eyes sat in dark caves like lurking dragons. Her eyebrows were bushy, white more than brown. They were an old man's eyes peering out from a woman's face.
"Thirty years we have traded on the River, Lord Shonsu, and never have we been taken by Her Hand. Never has She troubled us, nor we Her. Never have I heard of a ship being taken while at anchor, either. Perhaps you and I are indeed intended to do business together." Again she glanced at the River, studying the telltale ripple of wind approaching. Above them the sails stirred very slightly. She was playing for time.
"Then we had better do it quickly, Mistress Brota."
She shrugged bulky shoulders beneath crimson cotton. "What exactly do you seek from us?"
Wallie hesitated a second to line up his thoughts. With this woman he would prefer a signed, sealed, and witnessed contract backed up by affidavits and secured by a performance bond, but he would have to settle for a handshake. He glanced again at the innocent-seeming valley.
"Immediate embarkation. Safe passage for my companions and myself to..."
Careful! The geography of the World was variable―Aus might not be the next city by River. "Safe passage to the nearest city where I can enlist some swordsmen. Food and shelter, of course."
Again Tomiyano tried to speak, and again she slapped him down with a word. "Very well. The fare will be two hundred golds."
Nnanji's blasphemous shriek was lost in a bellow of relieved laughter from the captain. The other sailors grinned. The sails rippled.
Shrubbery rippled also, close to the two ruined cottages at the landward end of the jetty.
Two hundred golds was blatant extortion, far beyond the means of anyone but the rich. It would buy a farm.
"Done!" Wallie said.
Her eyes narrowed in anger, those dangerous male eyes behind a rubber female mask. "I would see your money, my lord."
Wallie was already fumbling in his money pouch, two fingers feeling among the coins for the jewels that the demigod had given him. He found one and held it up between thumb and forefinger. "I sold one just like this for three hundred, mistress. So I have the fare. We have a deal."
She scowled, staring at the tiny blue star. Greed won. "Get them aboard!"
The crew members jumped to obey. Two gates flew open in the ship's side, and hands reached down. Wind caressed the sails and they billowed joyfully. As Wallie jumped off the lumber, figures emerged from the trees. Tomiyano ran for the poop deck to take the tiller. Jja and Vixini went in one gate, Honakura was almost thrown through the other by Nnanji. More crew members began to spill out from doors in fo'c'sle and poop. Wallie dragged a bewildered Cowie behind him and hurled her up, also. Sapphire began to drift away, a gap opening between her fenders and the edge of the dock. Katanji scrambled aboard, pushed by his brother and pulled clear by a sailor. Sorcerers were running for the jetty, anonymous monks in their brown robes and cowls. Nnanji and Wallie grabbed at the sides of their respective gates and their feet were dragged free of the dock. They fell against the ship's side and for a moment dangled there, boots only inches above the piranha-infested waters. Then they scrambled up and were hauled aboard.
As Wallie rose to his feet, the gate banged shut behind him.
Whew!
†††
The sorcerers had halted halfway along the jetty, beaten. Their leader was a Fourth, and he shook his fist. Wallie waited for spell-casting to begin, but the sinister figures just stood there. Already Sapphire was a surprising distance out, turning her bow to open River. Either she was now out of range of magic, or the sorcerers were too winded by their run to chant.
Brota was standing in front of Wallie, feet firmly planted, hand outstretched. Male sailors had clustered around. Their faces were unfriendly, and their hands were behind their backs.
If it had been a test of Wallie's ability to win his way on board, then he had succeeded. If the right answer had been to stay and fight, then he had failed utterly, delivering the sword of the Goddess to a gang of pirates. He would be feeding fish in minutes.
Nnanji's boots drummed on the deck, and he appeared from around a dinghy that hung in davits amidships, next to the rail. He stopped, started to raise his hand, and then froze, nonplussed.
Wallie fumbled again in his pouch, deliberately taking much longer than necessary so the watchers would not know that there were more jewels there. "Ah!" He brought out a sapphire and dropped it onto Brota's fat palm.
She studied it carefully, then slid it into a pocket without offering to give him any change. She held out both hands. Awkwardly he did the same, and they made a four-handed shake, a new custom to Wallie. He thought the tension decreased then.
"Come with me, my lord." Brota turned on her heel, and sailors made way for her as she headed aft. Nnanji stepped back and almost fell into the hold.
Brota had a rolling, ponderous gait. Wallie followed with his head up, waiting for the knife in his back. It did not come, and a moment later Nnanji fell into step behind him.
Sapphire's main deck was small and very cluttered. Wallie had boarded alongside a large open hatch. Immediately aft of that, dinghies restricted the deck on either side. Then he had to detour again for the main mast, and a second hatch behind that, avoiding the stays slanting up from the rail, the bollards and racks of pins and fire buckets that seemed to obtrude everywhere, and also piles of lumber, including planks that he decided must be the hatch covers. It was an obstacle course, and dangerous with the two big hatches open. Women and children had emerged from somewhere to study the intruders with sullen resentment.
Brota was heading to a door below the poop deck―that at least was an empty area, with Tomiyano sitting on a helmsman's bench, holding the tiller and scowling. Two flights of steps led up there, one in each corner of the main deck, further crowding it. Wallie followed her through the doorway, ducking his head. Nnanji was at his heels.
The room was bright and airy, as big as the poop deck above it, although Wallie's sword hilt almost touched the beams. The only furniture was a pair of big wooden chests at the back, and the only obstruction the mizzenmast, close to the door―that was why the door was off center, then. There were two large windows in each wall, their louvered shutters open to admit a fine view in all directions.
"This we call the deckhouse, my lord. If you are to be aboard overnight, then it must suffice, for we have no spare cabins."
"It will serve very well," Wallie said. "But what do you use this for normally? I wish to inconvenience you as little as possible, mistress."
The bristly white eyebrows rose slightly. "We eat here when the weather is bad. The children play in it. The watch uses it at night. We can dispense with it for a day or so and not suffer unduly."
He smiled. He got no answering smile, but her manner was not so hostile as her son's had been; business was business. Wallie realized that he was not going to be tossed overboard ... not just yet, at least.
"And what rules would you have us obey, as passengers? I want no trouble, mistress. I come in peace."
Again mild surprise. "Heads and showers are through the forward door, my lord. I
ask that you not go below."
"Agreed."
She studied him for a moment and glanced at Nnanji.
"Permit me," Wallie said, and presented him. Both he and Brota used the civilian gestures―it would be difficult to draw a sword under so low a ceiling. Nnanji was curt, obviously still furious.
"There is one matter that often causes trouble, my lord. I am sure that you are honorable swordsmen―"
"Adept Nnanji and I brought our own slaves. The old man is harmless, and we shall warn the novice. If there is any friction at all, Mistress Brota, please inform me at once."
She nodded, chins bulging. "You are gracious, Lord Shonsu."
"And you on your side..."
She frowned. "I apologize for my son's brusque manner. He... You are welcome aboard. We shall serve as the Goddess wills."
If Tomiyano had been brusque, then Wallie had no need to meet hostile. "I understand that the closest city is Aus, about a half-day's ride to the north."
She glanced out at the scenery. Sapphire was already in mid-River, heading upstream. "That will be our destination, then. One port will do as well as any other for us. When we have restored trim, we shall make better time."
Wallie turned to look at the main deck outside. Voices and thumps revealed that work was going on in the holds. From time to time one end of a plank would appear and then disappear again. Some children were kneeling on the deck, watching what was going on below. The cargo had shifted and was being rearranged.